And In Death, I'm Free
by Mutant of Time
Summary: "Things can get so lonely, especially when you're trapped within the depths of your own broken body." Karkat's been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, and makes the mistake of becoming too close with those he loves. No Sburb AU, No current pairings, Humanstuck.
1. Chapter 1

**Stop me now if you've seen anything quite like this before.**

** I'll update the description and rating and all that stuff as time goes on, as well as put triggers or whatever in the chapters to avoid spoilers as they pop up, if any. **

**I feel like I should dedicate this to someone. If I did, it'd probably be to my moirail. She's seriously the best damn moirail there ever was.**

**Disclaimer: Cover art is mine. I don't own Homestuck or the characters, just this plot and writing and such. (Actually, some plot credit goes to my moirail, for she helped me develop it into what it is now.) **

* * *

You're in the ER for what seemed like the billionth time this year. You don't know why you were getting so sick. In your past couple of visits, a lot of tests were done. They sent you home and told you to come back if your symptoms worsened, or if they called you about the test results. It turns out this time that it would be both. You didn't listen at first when your dad and the doctors talked. It was always stupid boring medical terms and treatment discussion.

"We've been theorizing that because he's been getting sick-"

You zoned out again, fiddling with your hands and trying to ignore your brother, Kankri, who was talking your head off.

"His repeated illnesses-"

"Weakened immune system-"

You catch bits and pieces of what the doctors say, figuring it just _had_ to be more interesting than what Kankri had to say.

"Tests have shown that-"

Wait. More medical stuff. How about no.

"We've come to a conclusion on his diagnoses."

Did they finally get an answer to all your problems?

"Multiple Myeloma."

You were eleven years old, yeah, but that didn't mean you were stupid. You knew what the doctors were saying, you knew what they meant.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you've just been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma blood cancer. Apparently it's really rare in children, but you seem to be the exception. You're always the exception, what with your albino white haired, red-eyed mutation. Your eyes aren't completely red, more of a reddish brown, but it's still there.

Your father is in tears, which is quite rare for him. You watch him from your seat on the examination table. Kankri sits next to him mutely, a rare state. It sort of unnerves you, but you know this is serious.

"But listen, sir. With the right treatment, he can get better. He can get a bone marrow transplant too, if you so choose, which can definitely speed his recovery, if not pretty much cure him if done correctly. After all, it hasn't spread much. He has high chances of survival," the doctor tells your dad.

You glare at him. You sure don't feel like surviving. As if to proof this, you cough hard, a little blood coming up. This is caused by the pneumonia you've had for the third time this year, your immune system having been quite weakened by your apparent cancer. You didn't want to have this, you were just a kid, you just wanted to get better so you could play with your friends again.

"We can set up a treatment plan, put him in chemotherapy, there's so many options!" the doctor continues to tell your dad, trying to reassure him. You make eye contact with your brother. He looks sad. Maybe even sadder than you.

"I've already lost my wife to cancer, and now I have to lose my son too?!" your dad exclaims. The mention of your mother burns. She died of breast cancer when you were 6. Cancer was stupid. You hated Cancer. You hated yourself.

"Sir, please calm down. I know this is upsetting, but we're catching it in the early stages. He can get better."

Your dad just shakes his head. You don't want to remember this night.

* * *

You're silent as they wheel you into a hospital room. They had insisted you sit in a wheelchair. It was stupid. The nurses tell you that everything is going to be okay, but you know that those are just lies. You want to tell them to buzz off as they talk to you in overly cheerful voices, as if you were a two year old. You glare daggers at everyone.

So apparently you're going to be living in this room for a while. Weeks, months, years? Who knows. Not like you care. To be honest, it was good to be away from home, even if that meant you were in a hospital.

As they help you into your bed and attach IVs and such to you, you can't help but notice that there's a curtain in the middle of the room. Perhaps separating you from another patient? Do you have to share this room? It doesn't matter to you, as long as they mind their own business.

The nurses finally finish fiddling around with you, and leave you alone with your dad and whoever was behind that curtain. Your dad takes your hand and kisses your forehead. You sort of swat him away.

"I'll be fine, dad. I can get over this. I'm strong," you grumble. Your father nods, wiping a few tears.

"I'll come by to visit after work, I promise," he tells you. He works as a preacher at the church a few blocks down from your house, and as a teacher when he's not preaching. You nod at him.

"Alright dad. See you then."

He gives your forehead one last kiss before exiting the room, closing the door behind him. About half a minute goes by when suddenly the curtain is flung to the side. You jump, startled, and turn towards the culprit. It's a girl who looks about your age.

"Hello, _Karkat_!" she greets you, obviously having been listening to your conversation with your dad. "My name is Terezi!" You look her up and down. She looks about medium height for your age group, with you on the shorter side. She has bright reddish-orange hair, or what one might refer to as ginger. She's grinning down at you with a mouth full of gleaming white teeth that may or may not be in need of braces, and she has bright red frames perched on her face, sliding down to reveal dull, sightless blue eyes.

You glare at her. "Yeah, hey. What do you want?"

Normally people would be completely turned off by your more negative attitude, but she sure isn't. If anything, it seems to encourage her.

"I think if we're going to be staying here together, we should get to know each other! What are you here for?" Terezi asks. You growl, because she acts as if it's nothing, as if it isn't serious.

"Why is it any of your fricking business?"

"Well, it's not really. I'm just curious!" she presses on. "I'm here because I have Epithelioid-Celled Intraocular Melanoma," she states perfectly, seemingly having recited the term over and over before. You stare at her in silence, having no idea what that even is. She senses this, obviously.

"It's eye cancer, dummy," Terezi tells you. Her voice kinda falters as she speaks next. "I'm blind because of it..but that's okay! Because my other senses are totally hyped now, so I can pretty much smell and taste my way around!" she gives you a grin that makes you shiver and fill with dread.

"Well you'd better not lick me."

"Whatever, I won't lick you, grumpbutt. So are you going to tell me what you have or not?" she asks you, stepping forward and sniffing you since you won't let her lick you. "Cherries," you hear her say.

"Myeloma," you mumble quietly.

"What was that?" Terezi asks, and you know she's just screwing with you. Still, you spit it out, quite a bit louder this time.

"It's Myeloma, idiot! Multiple Myeloma! Blood cancer!" You hate that you can talk about this lightly, as if it weren't a big deal. It is.

"Oh...well I hope you get better!"

"Yeah, you too..." you offer, not really sure what else you could say in a situation like this.

Terezi invites herself to sit on the edge of your bed, her IV pole moving with her. "So, what's your favorite movie?"

Oh boy. The interrogation begins...as does a strange friendship (could you even call it that yet?) with the girl.

"You'll just laugh at me," you tell her grumpily.

"Aww, c'mon! Mine is 'Brave'!"

You shrug at her. "I don't really have a favorite, but I like stories about love," you finally admit. The two of you continue conversing, sort of bantering on here and there, and you think that you might actually be able to get along with her.

You weren't sure how you were going to survive in this place with Terezi for however long you were supposed to. How long were they expecting you to live anyways? You knew cancer was deadly. You knew you wouldn't quite get a full life because of it, even if you were 'cured'. You knew this. You weren't stupid. You wanted to survive, you wanted to beat this, you really did. You wanted it to be possible. You wanted to fight. You would fight. You promised yourself you would, for your mom on the day they diagnosed you, just a week ago. You were going to fight, and you just _had_ to win. For your mom.

* * *

**And that's the end of that! Review and tell me what you guys think! New chapter coming in a week or two, I dunno.**


	2. Chapter 2

**So I'm back with Chapter Two! :D Sorry if it's really medical-y. I had to do a lot of background research for this, did you know that? Still. No regrets.**

**At this point, there's still no warnings that apply so no triggering shit. Just Karkat complaining about his doctor ;)**

* * *

"Okay then, my favorite color is red!" Terezi answers your inquiry of her favorite color. She's been sitting with you on your bed for a good hour now, just talking. The nurses came in a few times to check on you, and approved how well you two seemed to be getting along at first. It was definitely a good thing.

You stick your tongue out to her answer. You don't much like the color red. Mostly because of your eyes, and the fact that your blood, the very thing that was poisoning you right now, happened to be red.

"What's yours then?" Terezi asks, obviously sensing your distaste.

"I don't really know. Not red though," you answer.

"Why not red?"

"Because red is-" you're going to say stupid, but you don't really want to insult Terezi.

"Stupid?" she finishes for you. You raise your eyebrows in surprise. What is she, a mind reader? "Why do you think it's stupid?"

You grumble, not answering. You don't _want_ to answer.

"Blue then. My favorite color is blue," you spit out the first color that comes to mind that _isn't_ red. Terezi frowns.

"Liar."

You're about to retort, but a nurse comes in again.

"C'mon, Miss Pyrope. It's time for your treatment session," she says, gently grabbing Terezi by her arm. Terezi makes a face of distaste.

"But I don't _want_ to! I'm almost all better anyways!" she protests, standing and placing her hands on her hips.

"But you _aren't_ completely better yet, which means you still need treatment. Do you want it to get worse?" the nurse retorts. Terezi shakes her head, but continues to pout. You can tell that this is a daily struggle, with the way the nurse seems rehearsed, yet tired, as if she's given the same speech to Terezi each day. She probably has.

"Well then that settles that. You're going. Oh, and Mister Vantas?" the nurse turns to you. You read her name tag. Stacey.

"What?" you ask, glaring at her for no apparent reason.

"Your doctor should be in here soon. She's going to inform you a little more of your..er.._condition_, and tell you a few options for treatment. Of course, your treatment may not start until tomorrow or the day after, seeing as it must be discussed further with your father."

"I know that! My dad will be here when he gets off of work, _Stacey_," you snap. You didn't _want_ to talk about your 'condition' with a stupid prick who thinks she knows everything. She's going to treat you like a little kid, and you know it. You aren't a little kid.

Stacey frowns at you, sighing. She takes a deep breath with her eyes closed before responding to you. "Okay then, good. Your doctor will be able to discuss your condition with your father, and your treatment will start sooner. We want nothing but to get you back to full health, Mister Vantas. We are here to help."

"Yeah, whatever," you reply, turning away from her and crossing your arms.

"See ya later, Karkat!" Terezi calls to you with a wave, and soon she and Stacey are gone. You sigh loudly, getting out the book you were currently reading, _Looking for Alaska_, by John Green. Sure, it was a little above your age level, but you could handle it. You are left in peace to read it for about a half hour before your doctor promptly interrupts you.

"Hello, Karkat, is it?" she asks, walking in. You nod, and she sticks out her hand to shake yours as she introduces herself. "Ah, hello there! I'm Doctor Harley, but you can call me Jade, of course! No need to be so formal!" She seems cheery, too much for your taste. You pointedly ignore her hand, which she withdraws eventually. She doesn't seem to be all that affected by your blatant rudeness though.

You set your book to the side as she begins talking, showing you a chart she brought with her.

"Alright, time to get down to the serious stuff! You see here, we've found your Multiple Myeloma in two places. Your left pelvis and femur," she points to said bones on her skeletal chart.

"It could spread of course, which is why we need to get to treatment right away, to keep it from spreading! Generally, your type of cancer can be treated until it goes away, but there's a high chance it will come back in most cases. Which is why we've got top of the notch treatment, so you can have minimal risk of it returning once you've been cured!"

Jesus Christ, she just doesn't know when to stop talking. You decide to interrupt her.

"Okay, just get on with it. What are the stupid treatments?"

"Well, your case right now isn't at a really advanced level. Right now, we don't think a transplant is needed, and depending on whether the medication I'm about to mention works or not, you may or may not need chemotherapy. I must talk to your dad about it, but you'll probably be put on melphalan and prednisone as well as Velcade. We call this treatment MPV. We think this may work since your kidneys haven't been much affected by your disease yet, and your infected bones are still in good condition."

You nod along, doing your best to pay attention this time around. This was serious, after all.

"We would like to do a brief examination of you here though before we make any final decisions. We'll need to do MRI and CT scans, and probably run you through a physical as well. This is mostly because we need to confirm exactly how fast the cancer cells are reproducing and how it can affect you in the next couple of months. If you wouldn't mind, we should get the physical done now," Jade tells you. You nod, standing up out of your bed.

"Alright then, come with me. This won't take long."

You follow her out of your room and down the hall, dragging your IV pole along with you. You don't know why you need it. All it's doing is giving you a few vitamins and such until the hospital puts you on real drugs.

Jade leads you into what looks like a normal examination room. She grabs a clipboard off her desk, and points at the examination table.

"Up up!" she tells you. You comply, albeit grumpily.

"I'll need you to take off your sweater," she tells you. You hadn't been put into a hospital gown. Terezi hadn't been in one either. You, because you just got here, her because she's obviously been here for a while, and it isn't necessary.

You almost obey that order, but you're attached to the IV, so you can't really take off your sweater. Jade notices, and quickly unclips you from it. You take of your sweater, and she then reattaches the IV to you.

"Sorry about that!" she giggles. How the heck does she even have a medical degree?

Jade makes you do a few breathing exercises while she listens, and then she feels around your back, obviously your kidneys and asks for numbers on a pain scale. It hurts of course when she presses, but not that much, so you answer with a 3.

"Okay then, I'll need a pain scale of your infected bones too. I want you to stay seated, but turn your body as far to the right as you can, and tell me the pain."

"Okay," you answer, and do so. Ouch, that hurt a little more than you expected. "Six." Jade nods, and makes you turn to the other side. That hurts a lot less. "Two."

"Alright. Now for you left leg. You need to trust me," she tells you. You visibly tense as she spreads your legs, wrapping her hands around your left thigh pretty high up. This makes you uncomfortable, but whatever. It's just a medical test.

"Okay, I'm going to press into your femur on the side we think it's infected on, and you need to tell me how much it hurts as opposed to the opposite side."

"Yeah yeah, okay," you answer, and wince as she presses in. "Ow...Seven." You try not to glare at Jade too much.

You tell her there's no pain at all when she presses the other side.

"Alright, good! The MRI and CT scans will still be necessary, but this gives me a better idea of how to go about your treatment. What time does your dad get off of work?" Jade asks you. You glance up at the clock, and do a mental check in your head.

"In about two hours," you answer her.

"Okay, good. I'll let you put your shirt on, and then you can go back to your room. Miss Pyrope may be back by then. I heard the two of you get along well!"

Jade deals with your IV again as you put your shirt back on, and you try not to blush. "Yeah, I guess. But it's not like I like her or anything. She's just...tolerable. She isn't even my friend," you tell her.

She laughs, shaking her head. "I'm sure that'll change. It's hard _not_ to be her friend, Karkat. She's a nice girl."

"Whatever," you answer, sliding off the table and grabbing your IV.

"I'll see you in a few hours, Mister Vantas!" Jade tells you, and you don't bother replying, just leaving to return to your room. By the time you get there, you're tired, ready for a nap or something. You aren't a baby, just all this hospital crap is exhausting. You see the room is empty when you return. So Terezi _isn't_ back from her treatment yet. Oh well. Now you could definitely get some sleep in.

You don't bother changing out of your jeans or anything, you just collapse on your bed. You aren't lying there for even five minutes before you drift off to sleep.


End file.
